


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

by imposterhuman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Arc Reactor, Arc Reactor Issues, Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Kidnapped Tony Stark, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, hydra sucks ass pass it on, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 15:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: Bucky didn’t know where everything went wrong. The day had started out good, great, even. But there he was, sitting in a dark HYDRA prison, holding the crushed remains of Tony’s arc reactor in his metal fist. And he had no idea how things had gotten there.---title from e e cummings's [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]





	i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> the arc reactor is such an underused plot point like it has so much potential for fluff (its a nightlight!) and angst (self-explanatory) so heres my lil bit of fluff on it
> 
> buckys pov is kinda new for me, lmk how i did!

Bucky didn’t know where everything went wrong. The day had started out good, great, even. But there he was, sitting in a dark HYDRA prison, holding the crushed remains of Tony’s arc reactor in his metal fist. And he had no idea how things had gotten there. 

 

\---

 

Bucky woke up cocooned in blankets after a full night’s sleep, which was rare for him. Even rarer was his softly snoring boyfriend on the bed next to him (Tony was like a cryptid when it came to sleeping; no one ever saw him do it). Bucky shifted, causing Tony to stir. 

 

“Hey,” he whispered, voice rough from sleep. “How’d you sleep?”

 

“Pretty well,” Bucky admitted. “Probably because you were here.”

 

“Sap,” Tony yawned. “Stay for five more minutes?”

 

“Fine,” Bucky grumbled, tucking himself up against Tony. “Five minutes, then I have to run.”

 

An hour later, Tony woke Bucky up with a guilty smile. “So you may have missed your run,” he grinned. “But, I made breakfast!” Tony held out a plate with some pancakes and fruit.

 

Bucky eyes the plate suspiciously. “Tony,” he started. 

 

“Don’t worry,” Tony said with an eyeroll. “I didn’t actually cook it. I assembled it, and that’s like ninety percent of all the work. Steve made them.”

 

“Oh, good,” Bucky replied, shoveling pancakes into his mouth. “He mad I skipped our run?”

 

Tony shook his head. “I impressed on him how much us poor insomniacs need our sleep, he dropped it after I gave him the puppy dog eyes.”

 

“Mm,” Bucky finished his food and pressed Tony back onto the bed. “What are we gonna do with all this free time, then?”

 

“I can think of something,” Tony said with a wicked glint in his eyes, pulling Bucky down for a smoldering kiss. 

 

Needless to say, they used their time well.

 

\---

 

Bucky and Tony were resting on their bed, sweaty and sated, when the Avengers alarm blared. 

 

“It’s HYDRA,” Steve announced over the PA. “We need everyone on this.”

 

“Roger, Rogers,” Tony said, more serious than usual. He ran out on the landing pad, suiting up, while Bucky pulled on his tac gear. In minutes, both of them were en route to where HYDRA was attacking.

 

Tony dropped Bucky right into HYDRA’s lines, where he decimated a whole squadron.

 

“Thanks, doll!” he called as Tony swooped by, shooting repulsors. 

 

“Chatter,” grumbled Steve, but he couldn't hide the fondness in his voice. However, the fondness was quickly replaced with urgency. “Iron Man, we have a bomb. Big one, timer says three minutes.”

 

“On my way,” Tony answered, touching down gently near Steve. Bucky couldn’t tell what was happening, too far away from the pair. He had to trust that tony knew what he was doing with the bomb.

 

“What’s happening?” asked Clint, loosing another arrow.

 

“Bomb’s on a timer, I need all of you to clear at least a hundred feet,” Tony said tersely. “I should be able to disarm it, but better safe than sorry.” There was the telltale sound of Tony’s armor retracting.

 

“Get back in your armor!” Steve commanded, confirming Bucky’s suspicion. “You’re a liability outside it!”

 

“Can’t,” Tony shot back. “It’s a tilt fuse, I need full range of motion in my hands. It’s safer this way, trust me. I know what I’m doing.” There was an edge to his voice; Bucky knew it was because Tony hated having his abilities and knowledge questioned, and he  _ hated  _ when people implied he was useless without the armor.

 

“You got this, Tony,” Bucky said reassuringly. “Radio silence, we’ll let you work.” Bucky waited with bated breath, taking out his anxiety on the few remaining HYDRA agents. 

 

“Got it!” Tony crowed, two minutes later. “Homemade mercury bombs are nothing compared to…. Wait,” Tony’s voice took on a sharp edge of panic. “Everyone away, its a trap!”

 

A ring of HYDRA agents surrounded the Avengers, who had gathered outside of the blast radius. 

 

“Surrender,” one of them said in a thick Russian accent. “And we will be merciful. After all, there is no need to prolong your deaths.”

 

“Fuck off,” Clint spat, readying an arrow. 

 

The Russian let out an amused chuckle. “Have it your way, then,” he said. He was about to open fire when the whine of repulsors drew his attention.

 

Tony landed in his signature three-point pose, red and gold gleaming in the sun. “Starting without me?” he asked, snark evident even when disguised by the voice modulator in his suit.

 

“You’re the guest of honor,” the agent said cryptically.

 

“My schedule is booked,” Tony shot back. “Call my secretary and make an appointment.” He fired his repulsor, but it was the agent neatly sidestepped. He made a hand motion, and suddenly he was surrounded by civilian human shields.

 

“Fire away, Stark,” he spat. “Get out of your suit and come with us, and the civilians live. Don’t, and…” he held up a gun. “Pretty self-explanatory, yeah?”

 

The suit stilled, palms dropping. The repulsors cut off abruptly, and Tony stepped out of the suit.

 

“Tony!” Steve shouted. “Stop!”

 

“They’re innocent,” Tony said steadily, hands raised in surrender. “Get them out of here. I surrender.”

 

“ _ No! _ ” Bucky screamed as he watched the HYDRA agents sedate Tony and drag him away. Natasha held him back, hissing about the guns pointed at the civilians and  _ would Tony want this?  _ like he was already dead. “ _ Let me go! _ ” He fought, and fought, but his strength was no match for the combined skills of Nat and Steve, and he could only look on as Tony disappeared.

 

“We’re going to get him back,” he said finally, voice hoarse from screaming. “I don’t care if I have to kill every HYDRA bastard on the goddamn planet, we are going to get him back.”

 

\---

 

Bucky got into the HYDRA prison, no problem. He had snuck away when the team was planning potential attacks, unwilling to stand by and let Tony be  _ tortured  _ while the team talked over strategy. He had already provided everything he knew; potential bases, numbers, and weapons, though all of his information was years out of date. Tony’s AI, FRIDAY, was helpful by giving them newer data, but HYDRA had disabled Tony’s trackers, so she couldn’t get him.

 

So Bucky had left, taking a Quinjet with the aid of FRIDAY and hightailing it to the nearest base. Unfortunately, it was deserted, with no sign of Tony  _ or  _ HYDRA having been there recently. 

 

“Fuck,” Bucky hissed, stomping back onto the plane.

 

“We still have three more options,” FRIDAY said reassuringly, though Bucky could hear the undercurrent of worry in her voice. “Boss is okay. I know it.” Bucky was in awe at how  _ human  _ FRIDAY sounded right then, down to the tremor in her voice.

 

“He’s just fine, Fri,” Bucky repeated. “We’re gonna get him and bring him home.”

 

Without prompting, FRIDAY took off for the next base. She was as anxious to find Tony as he was, Bucky could tell. They flew for what felt like hours (but was only around ten minutes) before touching down in a field near a building. The building had cars and people around it, and Bucky could feel hope fluttering in his chest. After telling FRIDAY to send the coordinates to the Avengers (better to ask forgiveness than permission, as Tony always said), he grabbed his gun and snuck out of the Quinjet, hoping to infiltrate the base and get Tony without a big fight. 

 

Naturally, that’s when everything went wrong. 

 

Bucky made it as far as the command center to look at the security feed before he was caught. Even the skills honed from seventy years as an assassin didn’t help; he was outnumbered and beaten. A needle pricked his neck and he slid into unconsciousness.

 

_ I’m sorry, Tony,  _ he thought as it all went dark.

 

\---

 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Tony drawled as Bucky woke up. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

 

Bucky shook off the grogginess, trying to clear his head of the fuzzy feeling from the dose of drugs HYDRA had given him. “I was here to rescue you,” he replied, somewhat irritated that his plan fell through. Tony was sitting in the cell next to his, the two separated by thick metal bars that Bucky knew even his super strength couldn't bend.

 

Tony smiled at him, but it was a sad smile. “You shouldn’t have come,” he whispered. “Because they… they want one thing, one thing I’ll never give. And you just made it harder to refuse.” Tony looked heartbroken, fingers playing around the rim of his reactor.

 

“What do they want?” Bucky asked, meeting Tony’s bloodshot eyes. He could see the marks of recent torture on the man’s body; bruises and cuts combined with the emptiness in his eyes and the rope burn on his wrists.

 

Tony tapped the reactor pointedly. “They want this,” he said. “And I can’t give it to them. Because with this? With the amount of energy this thing generates? They could make weapons that are leaps and bounds past what they have. Forget nukes, mini arcs in each missile would cause a hell of a lot more damage. And I can’t let that happen.”

 

Bucky was thrown by how resigned Tony sounded. “What’s the plan, then?”

 

“I need you to break it,” said Tony, voice steely. “Into a hundred pieces. Into dust. If you break it, they’re fucked. Why do you think I’m still alive? They want me to replicate it, but I’m not irreplaceable, Bucky. If I’m not cooperative, they’ll kill me and take the reactor.”

 

“I can’t,” Bucky said immediately. “I can’t, Tony, that would kill you!”

 

“Not immediately,” Tony grimaced. “It would take a couple days to reach my heart. If I’m lucky. I don’t honestly know how much the shrapnel has shifted every time something happens to the reactor.” Tony winced. “That was not reassuring, was it.”

 

“No, it wasn’t!” Bucky cried. “Tony, I can’t do this.”   
  
“There’s no choice!” Tony shouted. “You think I want this? They’re going to rip it from my chest eventually, Bucky, this is the only way.”

 

“I don’t believe this,” Bucky said, stubbornly ignoring the tears pricking his eyes. “You’re Tony fucking Stark, you can get out of here. HYDRA can’t win. They can’t take you from me, too.”

 

Tony’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “The team’s coming. I know they are. But it will be too late, and you know it. If they study it, even if they just get the plans, they win. I’m so sorry, Bucky.” Bucky could see how Tony was struggling, how difficult it was for him to be brave in the face of his impending death. Death by shrapnel was painful; Tony had once confided in him how painful it was when Stane took his reactor the first time, how he could  _ feel  _ the metal shifting under his skin. Tony had to be scared out of his mind, but he was holding it together for Bucky. 

 

Unfortunately, Bucky didn’t get a chance to reply, as a HYDRA agent came to drag Tony out of the cell. Tony fought, managing to free his arms long enough to twist the reactor out of its housing. He locked eyes with Bucky, and Bucky nodded.

 

Tony threw the reactor and Bucky caught it in his metal hand. With one clench of his fist, the light sputtered out and shards of glass and metal rained down from the hand. The agent cursed, but dragged Tony away anyway. Tony sent Bucky a grateful and resigned smile, closing his eyes and letting himself be taken away.

 

“Fight back!” Bucky screamed at Tony. He couldn’t believe that Tony was just…  _ giving up _ . He had heard stories, both during his time with HYDRA and at the Tower, of people who had kidnapped Tony. They mostly ended up dead in increasingly creative ways, and Bucky couldn’t fathom why Tony wasn’t blowing HYDRA to hell. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before; a year earlier, he had been kidnapped and held for a week before managing to shut down HYDRA’s entire online presence and show up at the Tower like nothing happened.

 

Bucky had a sinking feeling that it had to do with his presence. Tony was notoriously careless with his own safety, always throwing himself headfirst into danger, injuries be damned. WHen other people got involved, though, Tony turned downright suicidal, killing himself to try to protect others (Tony had said something once, about a man named Yinsen who did the same for him, but never elaborated. Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to know). He figured HYDRA was threatening Tony with Bucky’s life, trying to keep him in line.

 

He heard screams down the hall, hoarse shouts of pain that he recognized all too well. Bucky closed his eyes and prayed.

 

\---

 

See, Tony had lied to Bucky.

 

His lies were nothing new; he lied a lot, mostly little white lies about his sleeping habits or coffee addiction. 

 

But he had lied about the reactor, because Bucky would never have done what Tony needed if he knew. The reactor didn’t only keep the shrapnel away from Tony’s heart; it also kept his heart beating regularly, like a pacemaker. Tony figured he had maybe an hour, tops, before he went into cardiac arrest. By the time he had busted out of the HYDRA torture room (and seriously, they had a whole room just for torture?), it had been, by his best estimation, forty minutes. 

 

Tony didn’t have a lot of time left.

 

\---

 

Bucky had fallen into an uneasy sleep, his body working overtime to metabolize the remaining drugs, when an explosion jolted him into awareness. He looked up to see Tony with a manic grin outside his cell. The hole in his chest was unnerving, as were the broken bones he was sporting along with electrical burns all over his body. But he was free, smiling, and Bucky was confused.

 

“Am I dreaming?” he asked bluntly, rubbing his eyes.

 

Tony rolled his eyes. “No,” he said fondly. “We’re escaping. The team should be here soon, and if they rescue me, I lose my streak.”

 

Despite his best efforts, Bucky couldn’t keep the smile off his face at Tony’s seriously skewed priorities. “Right,” he said finally. “What’s the plan, then?”

 

“Glad you asked,” Tony dug around in his pocket, finally pulling out a key with a triumphant noise. He used it to unlock Bucky’s cell and started dragging the other man towards what was presumably an exit. “I have the place rigged to blow, so we need to leave.”

 

Bucky’s keen eye caught the strain on the genius’s smile, one that hinted of pain. “Are you okay?” he asked, knowing what the answer would be.

 

“Fine,” Tony replied predictably, and they were off. Bucky knew  _ that  _ wasn’t true, if only for the  _ giant fucking hole  _ in his genius’s chest. Tony kept raising his hand to tap at his reactor like he did when he was nervous, only to drop it with a wince. “You know I love you, right?” They were out of the building by then, scanning the sky for the Quinjet. Bucky had come in one, but it was too far away for them to get to without risk (and besides, Bucky didn’t want Tony walking more than he had to).

 

Bucky tilted his head in suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked quietly, cutting right to the chase.

 

“Lots of things,” replied Tony airily. “The vapor pressure of water at 25 degrees Celsius, the exact angle of earth’s axis, the density of mercury… oh, look, they’re here.”

 

“Tony,” Bucky said, concern and exasperation warring with each other in his tone. Concern won, though, when Tony collapsed on the spot instead of responding. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head and he wasn’t breathing. “Tony!” Bucky cried out, loud enough that the team, who were exiting the Quinjet, heard and ran over. 

 

“What happened?” Bruce asked, slipping effortlessly into Doctor Mode. He knelt down to do CPR, only to notice Tony’s missing reactor. “Where’s the reactor?”

 

“Crushed,” Bucky choked out.

 

“Grab a spare from the plane, combination 0319-23. Hurry!” ordered Bruce. The other Avengers had run into the base, looking for the rest of the HYDRA cell that Bucky was pretty sure Tony had disabled. 

 

Bucky ran, pushing his aching body as far as it could go. He was back to Bruce in seconds, but it felt like hours. It felt like it was too late. Tony’s lips were blue and his face was death pale. He held out the reactor, his fumbling hands a sharp contrast to Bruce’s steady ones. The doctor twisted the reactor home, connecting it to its delicate wires. It lit up in its normal blue shade, but Tony didn’t stir.

 

“Come on, come on,” Bruce chanted, doing chest compressions. “You can’t die; we just figured out those stretchy pants. Come on, Tony.”

 

Bucky had knelt down and was crushing Tony’s hand in a death grip. “You fuckin’ dumbass,” he said, voice filled with tears. “I swear to god, wake the fuck up so I can yell properly at your dumb ass.”

 

“You love my ass, don’t lie,” Tony gasped, eyes fluttering open. “Oh, hey Bruce. Nice weather we’re having.”

 

“I’m calling Pepper,” Bruce said, shaking his head. He walked back to the jet to give Bucky and Tony some privacy.

 

“What if we didn’t do that?” Tony asked. “And he’s gone. Fuck.”

 

“Your priorities are a mess, Antoshka,” Bucky said, hugging Tony tightly. “I thought you were dead!”

 

Tony cleared his throat. “Technically, I was,” he said, then he saw the look on Bucky’s face and winced. “But only a little bit! I’m better now, if that helps?”

 

Bucky leveled him with an unimpressed stare. “We are going to have a long conversation about this,” he warned.

 

Tony groaned loudly. “Again, what if we didn’t do that?”

 

“You almost died!” Bucky shouted. “And it would’ve been my damn fault!”

 

Tony gentled, holding Bucky’s hand tenderly between his own. “No, it wouldn’t have,” he said softly. “You did what I told you to, what I  _ wanted _ , based on the information we had. Nothing that happened was your fault. If you hadn’t come, I would’ve done it myself.”

 

“I killed you, Tony,” Bucky whispered.

 

“I got better,” Tony whispered back, trying to draw a smile out onto Bucky’s face.

 

“We’re going to talk about this more.”

 

“Later, though,” Tony winked. “First, I think we need to have some life-affirming sex.”

 

Bucky gave him a look. “First, you need to rest until Bruce clears you.” Tony looked like a kicked puppy, staring up at Bucky from under his eyelashes in a way the engineer  _ knew  _ drove Bucky wild. “But after that…”

 

“Well then, soldier,” Tony purred. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get to medical.”

 

Of course, that’s when the other Avengers walked by. 

 

“That’s not Tony,” Steve said, horrified. “He just willingly offered to go to medical!”

 

Tony, like the mature adult he was, stuck out his tongue and Bucky  _ cackled. _

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> what did you think?
> 
> suggestions and prompts welcome!
> 
> comments and kudos make my day <3


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